Title: The Petunia Carnage
Artist: Klaus Pichler
Self-published
22 x 28 cm
108 pages
90 colour images
Hardcover with laser-burnt embossing
Design by Roland Hormann
Texts by Klaus Pichler
English
September 2021
When plant scientist Teemu Teeri went out of Helsinki Railway Station in May 2015, he noticed some vivid orange petunias in a planter. He was surprised since petunias don‘t come in orange colors naturally, and he took a few stems for testing in his lab. This chance encounter was the starting point of a case which was later called the ‚petunia crisis‘ and ultimately led to the destruction of all orange petunia variants worldwide.
The book “The Petunia Carnage” is based on the true story of the orange petunias, following the consequences of Teemu Teeri‘s discovery, when DNA tests revealed that the orange petunias were transgenic. The book goes back to the origins of the orange petunias at a controversial 1990‘s landmark experiment at Max Planck Institute in Cologne, followed by their mysterious ‚escape from the lab‘. Finally, it explains why the orange petunias were regarded as ‚illegal‘ after they had been bred and sold without permit for more than 25 years, leading to their worldwide mass destruction in 2017.
- From the artist’s website
When plant scientist Teemu Teeri went out of Helsinki Railway Station in May 2015, he noticed some vivid orange petunias in a planter. He was surprised since petunias don‘t come in orange colors naturally, and he took a few stems for testing in his lab. This chance encounter was the starting point of a case which was later called the ‚petunia crisis‘ and ultimately led to the destruction of all orange petunia variants worldwide.
The book “The Petunia Carnage” is based on the true story of the orange petunias, following the consequences of Teemu Teeri‘s discovery, when DNA tests revealed that the orange petunias were transgenic. The book goes back to the origins of the orange petunias at a controversial 1990‘s landmark experiment at Max Planck Institute in Cologne, followed by their mysterious ‚escape from the lab‘. Finally, it explains why the orange petunias were regarded as ‚illegal‘ after they had been bred and sold without permit for more than 25 years, leading to their worldwide mass destruction in 2017.
- From the artist’s website
